Haredi Extremists Riot in Beit Shemesh
Three rioters arrested after hundreds threw rocks at police and set trash cans on fire.
By Gil Ronen
First Publish: 12/29/2011, 10:16 PM
Orot girls school
Israel new photo: Flash 90
There was rioting in Beit Shemesh Thursday, as the tension between a group of extremist hareidi-religious Jews and less extreme streams continued.
Several hundred hareidim hurled rocks at police forces and set garbage dumpsters on fire on Nehar HaYarden street, near the Orot Neria girls' school. A group of extremists has repeatedly attacked girls who walked to the school because they say they are too immodest.
The girls, whose families belong to the religious Zionist stream, went back to school Thursday.
Police dispersed the rioters and arrested three of them. Police forces remain in the area into the night.
Earlier in the evening, posters were put up throughout the city, announcing that the rally that was planned to take place in the hareidi area was postponed. Instead, a prayer rally would be held next week, for fortitude "against the decrees that the government is trying to apply to the hareidi public."
Tags: Beit Shemesh